


Clean.

by EmmyGreene



Series: Little Things. [12]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 18:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10792206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmyGreene/pseuds/EmmyGreene
Summary: Judith spits up all over Beth and Daryl helps her clean up.





	Clean.

**Author's Note:**

> So it turns out, I cannot write smut. Apologies for where this ends... let your imagination fill in the rest ;)

Beth hated to lose hope but things were looking pretty desperate. They were running out of food, quickly. She could handle hunger, she could live off rations for a while so it wasn’t herself she was worried about. It was the baby screaming in her arms. They were down to their last tin of infant formula, the nutrient packed milk that alleviated some of the stress about feeding her, and she was rejecting it. It was a different brand to what they’d used before and something in it was upsetting her. She had been screaming for two hours before projectile vomiting all over Beth. It wasn’t the vomit that bothered Beth, again, she could handle that, it was the fear that they couldn’t feed this precious toddler. Her developing brain needed more than the old noodles Beth could survive on for a week. After emptying the contents of her stomach Judith had finally settled. Beth had stripped off the sweater she was wearing and quickly changed Judy into clean pajamas before placing her back in the crib. She sat on the floor opposite singing softly as the little girl fell asleep. Beth couldn’t help but cry. At times like this she wished she was able to do more. She wanted to help everyone and right now just loving Judith wasn’t enough. She heard footsteps at the door and hoped it was Rick and Daryl home from their run. She took a deep breath to calm herself and opened the door hoping for good news.

‘She go down OK?’ Rick asked her.

Beth shook her head.

‘That formula, it’s making her sick. We can’t give it to her anymore.’

‘I know.’ Rick looked defeated. ‘No luck today either.’

‘Oh’ Beth looked dejected.

‘There’s a whole story, Daryl can fill you in. He’s just taking a shower.’

Rick pulled a face ‘Smells like you bore most of the vomit’

‘Regurgitated formula has a smell entirely of its own’ Beth agreed.

Just then Judith cried out. Out of habit Beth grabbed her from the crib, just in time to get covered in round two.

‘I’ll change her again’ Beth whispered.

Rick took a look at her, the red eyes, the spit up on her skin, her tiny frame that looked even smaller than he remembered.

‘I’ve got her. You go get cleaned up, then go to bed. She’ll be fine. We’ll be fine’.

Beth planted a kiss on Judith’s head as she handed her over.

 

 

 

She headed to the bathroom and saw the light on inside.

‘Daryl?’ she knocked on the door. ‘Can I come in?’

He opened the door to her, wearing only black sweat pants that looked hastily pulled on, his hair still wet.

‘What happened t’ya?’ he asked, taking in the sight and smell of her.

‘Judith.’ She responded flatly.

‘C’mon, I’ll  gitya cleaned up’

She followed him in and let him lift her up, placing her on the bench next to the sink.

‘Heard you had quite the day’ she said to him as he ran warm water onto a wash cloth.

‘Met Jesus’ he replied.

‘What?’

He took the cloth and started wiping her face slowly, removing spit up from her cheeks. It was amazing how much mess one little toddler could make.

‘Not the real one, don’ think. We got him locked up, talk to him tomorrow’

He rinsed off the cloth and started again, moving down to her neck.

‘We had a whole truck full of food too. Lost it all’

‘Don’t tell me that’ she groaned.

‘I don’t even care about food for us, just Judith.’

‘Hmm, we’ll figure somethin’ out. Don’ think I drank no fancy formula an’ I survived’ he said.

He repeated the rinsing process and started on Beth’s shoulder when a slight blush crept up on his cheeks.

‘Y’know she aimed right down your shirt’ he said.

Beth nodded ‘everytime’.

She raised her arms up and Daryl removed her shirt, leaving her naked from the waist up.

She could sense she’d made Daryl awkward which made her giggle a little.

‘You’ve seen me get changed a hundred times’ she said, a mocking tone to her voice.

‘Hmm’ he replied, wiping the last of the spit up off her.

‘I never took you for a prude’ she continued.

It was true, she knew that Daryl had been concerned when they became a couple and wanted to take things slow but they never spoke much about it. She assumed eventually things would just progress further but that hadn’t really happened. Sure, he initiated contact now, kissed her on his own accord, his hands even wandered sometimes but that was it. It had been going on for months and Beth had been waiting for an opportunity to address it, now seemed like the right time.

His hands were firmly back on her shoulders now. The spit up was gone, thankfully taking the smell with it.

‘What’ya thinkin’ bout?’ he questioned.

‘Sex.’ The slight blush developed until his entire cheeks were red.

‘You wanna talk bout it?’ he asked.

‘No, I wanna do it’ she said flatly.

‘Oh’.

‘But if you wanna talk about it first...’ she said lightly,

They’d talked about sex before, about their own pasts, about what hadn’t happened at Grady. About the boys she wouldn’t let touch her below the waist, about the girls whose names he couldn’t remember. They’d talked about it in the abstract, before there was a them and since things became more physical it had been an almost unspoken rule not to. When the others made jokes about them she watched his cheeks flush and she looked down, let them believe whatever they wanted to.

Now it was just them though, with her half naked in a bathroom.

‘Just... I’m...’

‘Still worried you taking advantage of me?’ she questioned.

He shrugged ‘just don’t want ya to ever feel pressured.’

‘Daryl, we’ve been together for months and you’ve been beyond a perfect gentlemen’ he smirked at that and she did too because it was the last phrase she ever thought she’d use to describe him. ‘I don’t feel pressure or coerced or anything else, maybe just a little rejected that you don’t want to.’

‘I do’ he whispered.

Suddenly she shivered, it wasn’t warm in this bathroom. He reached forward and wrapped his arms around her.

‘C’mon then’ he whispered, lifting her down.

He opened the bathroom door and checked they were all clear before ushering her into the bedroom.

‘You sure?’ he whispered as she climbed up onto the bed.

 

‘I’m sure’ she replied as he turned off the lights.


End file.
